What To Read and Why

The title of novelist (Mister Monkey), critic, and essayist (Reading Like a Writer) Prose's new guide could just as easily be "How I Read and Why," or "You've Got To Read This," which the author claims in her introduction was her suggestion. With warmth, wit, and a keen intellect, Prose dives into the long (Knausgaard), the venerable (Austen, Dickens, Eliot), the modern (Bolaño, Egan), and underappreciated (Mavis Gallant), not to mention the work of two photographers. The book begins with longer pieces praising how authors such as Flaubert beautifully convey human frailties and ugliness, then continues with descriptions of misunderstood writers, difficult writers, and the thin line between erotic and pornographic art. Slightly shorter pieces touch on the impact of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women on a young Prose, how to write clearly, the joys of reading as a solitary activity, and a revisionist view of the oeuvre of photographer Diane Arbus. Some essays have appeared elsewhere, including one that looks at photographer Helen Levitt's Crosstown.